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Asheville African American history promoted

ASH
Published 11:00 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2014

This photo of the YMI Cultural Center was featured in a 2002 exhibit. The center played a significant role in the history of Asheville’s African American community.(Photo: File photo)

ASHEVILLE – A city elementary school was named for Isaac Dickson, but some residents as well as visitors to the area may know little else about the man who was born a slave and later was named to Asheville’s first school board.

A new commission could help change that.

The city recently approved the formation of the joint city-county African American Heritage Commission. Buncombe County commissioners are expected to consider the idea at their Tuesday meeting.

If approved, one of the commission’s duties would be to develop a plan “to identify, create, encourage, promote and implement projects that will recognize, increase and expand the awareness” of African-Americans in Asheville and Buncombe County.

“The African-American people in this community and this area have contributed much to this area in more ways than one,” said Marvin D. Chambers, a supporter of the new commission. “There have been many, many people who have contributed here.”

Chambers was a member of the group of Asheville students who helped desegregate Asheville institutions in the 1960s.

He says many people don’t know the contributions of key African-American leaders.

Dickson, who is probably better known than some other prominent African-Americans, came to Asheville in the 1860s. He was able to buy property along what is now a section of Charlotte Street. He later helped organize black male property owners to vote in favor a new public school system for the city.

Johnnie N. Grant, who has been helping organize the commission, grew up in Asheville, moved away and returned in 2003. She says she felt the rich culture and history of the African-American community “was being overlooked here in Asheville.”

“You have these grassroots groups that are doing things sporadically throughout the county,” she said.

But the commission would pull them together under a single umbrella and promote collaboration.

When the commission is up and running, it will have nine members.

Organizers of the effort say highlighting the rich history could become a tourist draw for Asheville.

“You walk around and you see monuments and plaques and street signs that recognize the history of this great town, but it does not, for the most part, include anything about the African-American history,” said Carmen Ramos-Kennedy, who has also worked to promote the commission.

One duty of the commission would be identifying sites that are significant to African-American history.

Chambers said major highways cut through historically African-American communities, and “when they came through with urban renewal and all those other programs, these neighborhoods and communities were dispersed, and much of the history has been lost because of that.”

The rich history could become a tourist draw for the area and create jobs for African-Americans, Ramos-Kennedy said.

“My dream is that it (the commission) will certainly have a serious focus on economic development,” she said.

There’s growing interest “in the history of all the people who formed this nation,” she said. She hopes the commission can shed light on an untold story in Asheville.